


Thaw

by Ironlawyer



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/F, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Loss of Powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 13:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17142680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironlawyer/pseuds/Ironlawyer
Summary: Trapped, scared and holding Carol in her arms, Jess contemplates their relationship.





	Thaw

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Senisra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senisra/gifts).



> Sorry I couldn't write you something a bit longer, Seren, but I hope you will enjoy what is here!

Jess’s fingers are going numb. The blood soaking through her woolly mittens is stuck to her skin and crusting over like a sheet of ice. She keeps her hand in place, doesn’t move, and hardly breathes, afraid that if she pulls her hand away it’ll be like pulling the tab from a pressurised can.

Carol’s blood on the bright blue snow of this deserted world is the ugliest thing Jess has ever seen, but the warmth of her pressed close and holding tight against the cold is the best thing she’s ever felt. She tucks her head closer to Carol’s, nose buried in her hair; smells her shampoo, her hair gel, her blood.

It worries her how much she needs this to be okay. Jess imagines a life where Carol dies here. Where she turns to the bottle to cope, like Carol once did. Where she gets twisted up inside from that little bit of Hydra that lives buried in her heart. She could be a dangerous woman. She wonders when Carol became such a part of her, and hates her a little for making her feel like she’s dying too. _No one is dying,_ she wishes she had the conviction to believe it.

Carol is supposed to be the best of them. Strongest, fastest, bravest. Jess can feels Carol’s heart beating as she presses against the breastbone, against the blood that wants to flow out of her. Out here, Carol is as frail and human as anyone else. The solar flares that took their ship down took Carol down too. Passed out in the cockpit, the landing had been rough, but rougher still when Carol woke without a hint of power.  

Jess has to be the strong one for once.

‘Jess?’ Carol’s voice is more strained than Jess has ever heard it, but she’s trying to hold back the pain in it. For Jess’s benefit, probably. Carol is still trying to be the strong one.

‘Yeah?’

‘I think you should go.’ Their ship is fifty feet up from the chasm where they fell, Jess can climb it alone, but _only_ alone. They’re well sheltered from the planet’s harshest winds, but there’s only so much stillness their bodies can take here. The cold is in Jess’s bones and Carol’s blood.

In spite of it all, Jess laughs. ‘Fuck that. I’m not leaving you.’ The Carol Jess knows would fight her, but she’s weak now, cold and human and quiet. Carol’s hand sneaks under the hem on Jess’s jacket, seeking warmth, or comfort, or human contact.

Because Carol is rooted in her life now, Jess can’t live without her. She has a burning need to lash out, because that is what she does when she feels things. Years of fighting supervillains have fucked up her emotional compass and she doesn’t know how to do comfort. She just lets Carol cling to her and clings back. She’s sitting here soaked in Carol’s blood, and she doesn’t care that it’s freezing and she can’t feel he toes anymore, because Carol is maybe dying in her arms and this is the only time she’s ever held her.

They belong together. It’s a fucked up moment to realise it.

‘I’m sorry, you know,’ Carol says.

Jess doesn’t want her to say what she’s sorry for, so she kisses her instead. It’s a welcome and a goodbye. Right in the way she didn’t know she was dreaming of and wrong in the way it stirs fear inside her. Carol’s lips are as cold as the rest of her. Jess doesn’t pull away and neither does Carol. She can still feel Carol’s blood beneath her fingers. It’s horrible and beautiful. She pulls away to gather her breath but the ice in the air steals it away even more.

‘Did you just do that because you think I’m dying?’ Carol asks.

‘You’re not dying.’ But she doesn’t quite believe it. Maybe they both are.

‘Then you’d do it again?’

She imagines waking up in Carol’s arms at home, healthy, happy, in love. ‘Every day,’ Jess says. The kiss was a mistake because she can’t imagine living and never knowing it again. ‘When we get home, we can do it every day. The others saw where we came down, they’ll be here soon.’ Maybe it’s a lie, but she needs to hope for herself now, as much as for Carol.

She imagines the sound of engines and begs Carol to hold on that little bit longer.


End file.
